#Also I'd be happy to listen if anyone has criticism regarding the CWs that were mentioned here

[ninjaturtlecosmo]

Stella Small

This post is about my TAWOG OC, Stella Small. I don't really draw, so I used Picrew to make a human version of this character, so just imagine the girl in this picture, but if she was the same species as Mr. Small. Before I go on to share her story, first I want to take a moment to credit @spideyladman for inspiring Stella and Steve's backstory involving their unstable and abusive mother, and I also want to credit @erroryeswifi for inspiring me to also add Harold Wilson being Steve's tormentor all throughout their school years together.

Bio:

The early years, childhood to teenage years;

CW: Mentions of abuse, loss of a parent, bullying, homophobia, stalking.

Steve and Stella Small were born fraternal twins in the small Caliornia town of Elmore on May 20th. During their early childhood they had a dad that was very kind and loving to them, and who even inspired Steve's interest in the hippie lifestyle, but sadly they couldn't really say the same for their mother, who was always mentally and emotionally abusive to her children, often lashing out at them just because they were different from other kids. But while Steve was the one that was often frightened by his mother and her emotional instability, Stella was always the more rebellious type, more often standing up for her younger twin and calling out their mother for her treatment towards them, often resulting in fights between the two of them which would result in their mother locking Stella in the basement, or even cutting Stella's long hair after some of the fights would result in Stella telling her what an awful mother she was..... This of course only escalated when eventually their father died, and their mother became worse as a result..... In the end, at home, Steve and Stella only had each other to rely on. School was more of a safe haven for the two of them when they had the company of their friends to confide and find an escape in, especially Patrick Fitzgerald, Sal Left Thumb, and Nicole, the latter whom Stella had a secret crush on. As Steve and Stella went to school before the 2000s, this was during a time when LGBT people weren't as accepted as they are now, which was difficult for Stella as she was a lesbian, and the only person she felt safe coming out to at the time was her brother, who accepted her with all his love and a vow to keep her sexuality a secret until she felt safe letting others know. Despite her crush on Nicole, Stella knew it wouldn't work out since during this time she was already dating Richard, and Stella just learned to accept that she and Nicole would never be a thing. While Stella enjoyed school, there was only one thorn in hers and Steve's side that made her brother's life there a living hell too, that thorn being none other than Harold Wilson, who constantly bullied Steve because of how different he was from other kids at Elmore, often to the point that Harold would get physical and beat him up where no one saw them, and of course Steve always had Stella there coming to his rescue. Harold's harassment of course never stopped there, in fact despite him bullying Stella's brother, he would often flirt with and hit on her, trying everything with his charm to get her to be his girlfriend...... This attraction to Stella would often border on obsession, as Harold held onto pictures of her from the yearbooks, and he would often contemplate to himself how he'd one day make Stella his, how she could do better with her life than just stick up for her "pansy brother", sometimes he would even stand outside their house and watch Stella through her window, somehow not managing to get caught that entire time...... In a way, you could say that when Harold eventually chose Jackie, he was settling for what he deemed "second best" once it became clear he'd never win over Stella. This didn't finally happen however until graduation came, and Stella immediately packed her bags to leave Elmore for Los Angeles to fulfill her dream of becoming a rock star. She tried getting Steve to come with her, but, he felt too guilty to leave their mother behind and chose to stay.

The adult years;

CW: Mention of car accident, drinking, coma, rape

At this point, Stella is now 27, having spent nearly the last decade playing music in bars and restaurants around LA while also supporting herself working at a music store, still trying to make it big in the music world. At this point, her and Steve's mother had died in an accident some time ago, with Steve still living in Elmore as he's working on getting his teaching degree. However, one day Stella got a phone call from Patrick telling her that Steve had been involved in a really bad car accident, and that he's currently in the hospital in a coma with there being no way of knowing when he'll wake up. As soon as she heard this, Stella immediately packed her bags and went back to Elmore after 10 years to see her brother in the hospital, finding him in a comatose state in a hospital room with a breathing mask on his face, and bandages all over him from the accident..... After talking to the doctor, it's already clear to Stella that with the amount of damage Steve suffered, there's a very good chance he would need some form of rehabilitation, and that he may end up being found to have sustained some form of permanent damage..... This sends Stella into a state of deep stress that her brother might not be able to care for himself after he wakes up, that his life may have been ruined from the accident, and even makes her wish she had tried harder to get him to leave Elmore with her..... As a result, she ends up going straight to the nearest bar to drink away her stress, but little does she know that the same bar she went to is where Harold Wilson was hosting his bachelor party, as he was getting married to Jackie the next day...... The moment Harold sees Stella, he notices how wasted she is, but instead of helping her, all he thinks about is using this chance encounter as an opportunity to continue hurting his old bullying victim from highschool and to get back at the girl who kept rejecting him over and over again.... so with no one looking, Harold takes Stella out the back of the bar..... and without going into explicit detail, some really nonconsensual stuff happens with Stella being unable to defend herself because of Harold's strength over her and her being too intoxicated to stop him. It isn't until Stella wakes up alone in that alleyway the next day that she realizes what happened, leaving her feeling broken, alone and overall traumatized from the knowledge of what Harold had done to her..... She couldn't bring herself to go to the police, or a hospital, to tell anyone, not even Steve once he finally woke up from his coma, and Stella spent the next 2 months helping him recover as much as possible until he was deemed okay to recover on his own, and then Stella went straight back to Los Angeles..... Not knowing how much further her life would change from then on.

Life as a musician and a mother;

CW: Pregnancy from rape, mention of childbirth

Shortly after returning to LA, Stella finally formed a band of her own after befriending 3 other aspiring musicians; Guitar player Takumi Mori the panther, bass player Colleen Richie the raccoon, and drummer Trixie Sanderson the triceratops, and they all started doing shows and recording CDs together..... However, it was around this time that Stella started experiencing excruciating nausea and headaches, and it didn't take long either for her to realize she had missed her time of the month..... for the last 3 months. Immediately, she bought a pregnancy test, and ended up taking it one day on the RV that she, Takumi, Colleen and Trixie had just moved in on, and the moment the trio heard their lead singer sobbing in the bathroom, it didn't take them long to realize what the test result was..... at this point, they all already knew what had happened in Elmore with Harold, which made them realize how terrifying this situation must be for her. Colleen, the most level haded member of the band, was quick to try and console Stella, telling her she has a choice on what to do about this pregnancy..... and after a long and lengthy discussion and a lot of thought, Stella soon decided she wanted to keep her baby, wanting to take this chance to be a better mother to her child than hers and Steve's was, and wanting to give them the childhood she never had. So, despite the difficulties, Stella and the band all spent the next few months playing whatever shows they could around the country while also preparing for the baby's arrival. Then one night, December 6th, they were all playing a show when Stella started to feel contractions, but Stella was the type that didn't want to stop the show until rhe very end, and wanted to give all the fans the show they came to see and enjoy, so for the next 3 hours she put herself through pain which got worse as time passed, as the contractions got closer and closer..... only to finally end the show after a few hours and then be rushed back to the RV so everyone could get Stella to the hospital, but at that point, Stella was too far along in labor for them to be able to hit the road, and they had to do the delivery then and there on the RV. At that point, the delivery only lasted 5 minutes before Stella had pushed out a little baby girl that she named Lita, after Lita Ford, who's song "Kiss Me Deadly" was the closing song to finish off the concert that they had just played. The moment Stella held her daughter for the first time, she made a promise then and there that she would love and protect her always, and never let anything hurt her the way she had been hurt all her life.

Present day;

By this point, Stella, Takumi, Colleen and Trixie had all been on the road for 12 years now, all of them raising Lita and showing her more landmarks in the USA than most kids her age ever get to see, while also letting her watch them play all their shows from backstage. Despite all the fun of this kind of life for Lita, one day Colleen voices her concerns to Stella that this kind of life isn't something that would be considered normal for a kid, and that Lita needs more of a routine in her life and to get used to staying in just one place for a while. Not just that, but Lita also needed friends in her life to connect with, as this much travelling never left any time for Lita to make friends, especially since the adults on the RV never let Lita have a smartphone and therefore she couldn't talk to people online. To finalize her point, Colleen even tells Stella "You're 40 now, and you've barely been in contact with your brother for the last 12 years. He doesn't even know he's an uncle. When are you gonna tell him? When are you gonna see him again? When are you gonna confront what happened that night and tell someone besides us what happened?". Realizing at this point that moving back to Elmore and meeting her only living family member besides her mother would be good for Lita, and realizing Colleen is right and she needs to confront the past by going back to her old home town, Stella makes the decision for all of them to go to Elmore, at that point only able to hope that the reunion with her brother and with everyone in the town she grew up in goes well...... and hoping with all her heart to avoid the very man who haunted her nightmares since that night at the bar...